GOVERNMENT ENGINEERING COLLEGE

BUXAR

A Project Report
On

“Design of an air purifier”

-with focus on function and aesthetic design

Bachelors of Technology in Electrical Engineering

Submitted by
Satya Prakash 20103155004
Pankaj Roy 20103155027
Abhishek Kumar 20103155002

Under the Guidance of

UTKARSH KUMAR

Professor Department of Electrical Engineering

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 GOVERNMENT ENGINEERING COLLEGE
BUXAR,802101
Department of Electrical Engineering

CERTIFICATE
Certified that the Project entitled “Design of an air purifier” is presented by
SATYA PRAKASH, PANKAJ ROY, ABHISHEK KUMAR student of GOVERNMENT
ENGINEERING COLLEGE BUXAR in partial fulfilment for of the requirements as
a part of the curriculum, Bachelors of Technology in Electrical Engineering of
Bihar Engineering University, Patna during the year 2023-24.It is certified that
all correction/suggestion indicated for Internal Assessment have been
incorporated in the report deposited in the departmental library. The project
report has been approved as it satisfies the academic requirements in respect
of the project work prescribed for the bachelor of Technology degree.

Signature of the Guide Signature of the HOD Signature of the Principal

(UTKARSH KUMAR) (Prof. DEEPAK KUMAR) (Dr RAM NARESH RAY)

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 External Viva

Name Of Examiner Signature with

Date

1.

2.

3.

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 DECLARATION

We, student of Seventh Semester(7th), B. Tech, Electrical Engineering,

Government Engineering College of Buxar, declare that the project
work titled “Design of an air purifier” has been carried out by us and
submitted in partial fulfilment of the course requirements for the
award of degree in Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering
of Bihar Engineering University, Patna during the academic year
2023-2024.

SATYA PRAKASH PANKAJ ROY ABHISHEK

KUMAR
(20103155004) (20103155027) (20103155002)

Place: Buxar
Date:

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 Design
Of an
Air
Purifier
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 ABSTRACT

Poor indoor air quality is commonly found in homes in larger cities,

and is the result of a growing industrialization that pollutes the air we
breathe with contaminants like industrial dust, smog, and other
particles from traffic. The solution from a user perspective, is to use
an air purifier that clean the air from these particles inside the user’s
home. An air purifier can also be used to ease annoyance for people
suffer from allergies. However, most air purifiers on the market today
are made with one-time use filters that eventually ends up in landfill,
and incur a regular cost for the consumers.
This master thesis concerns the design and
development of the next generation of air purifiers for indoor use. The
project has been conducted with a human centred design process and
an eco-design approach. The development of this project contains
several different methods commonly used in a design process, which
have been used to achieve a result that is trustworthy and in line with
user needs.
The project also resulted in a patent application for a new
type of filter that the user can clean themselves without the need to
continuously buy new filters. The filter also consumes less energy, is
smaller and more compact than competitors on the market. This leads
to less material use which result in less negative environment impact.
Some areas where we found todays air purifiers to be deficits have
also been improved, such as the whole experience when
cleaning/replacing filters together with an interface that is easy to
understand and use.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is my proud privilege and duty to acknowledge the kind of help and
guidance received from several people in preparation of this report.
Apart from my own, the success of this report depends largely on the
encouragement and guidelines of many others. It would have not been
possible to prepare this report in this form without their valuable help,
co-operation, and guidance.
I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to our principal ()
Government engineering college Buxar for his motivation and for
creating an inspiring atmosphere in college by providing state of the
art facilities for preparation and delivery of this report. My sincere
thanks to () Head of Department of Electrical Engineering, for his
whole-hearted support in completion of the project.
I am highly indebted to my report guide Assistant Prof. () for guiding
and giving timely advice and suggestions in the successful completion
of this project.
Finally, I would like to put forward my heartfelt acknowledgement to
all my project mates who have directly or indirectly provided their
overwhelming support during my project work and the development
of this report.

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 CONTENTS

1.
Introduction…………………………………………………
……………10-13
1.1 Background
1.2 Objective & aims

2.
Context………………………………………………………
………………14-19
2.1 Air purifier
2.2 How it works
2.3 Using air purifier
2.4 Laws & Regulations

3.
Implementation………………………………………………
………….20-22
3.1 Design of air purifier
3.2 Hardware Requirement

4.
Diagram………………………………………………………
………………23-25
4.1 Block Diagram

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 4.2 3-D Diagram

5.Working……………………………………………………
………………….26-28
5.1 Working of air purifier

6.Need of air
purifier………………………………………………………
29-31
6.1 Particulate Matter & health
6.2 Air cleaning
7.Conclusion…………………………………………………
………………..32-34
7.1 Conclusion of project

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 INTRODUCTION

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Introduction
Many countries and larger cities in the world are struggling with
severe air pollution today. Factorise, vehicles and use of non-
renewable energy pollutes the air around the cities. In China and India
this is a major problem, the polluted cities in these countries are home
to more than 1 billion citizens.
The solution that people use to clean the indoor air in the polluted
areas are called air purifiers. It is a device that most people that are
affected by poor air quality keep in their homes and offices. The air
purifier’s function is usually to create an airflow in the home by
suction from a fan inside the device. The air then passes through some
sort of filter media which traps the polluted particles, and out comes
clean air.
However, most air purifiers on the market today are using a so-called
HEPA filter, which need replacement every few months and consume
a lot of energy. This solution is rather costly and is not suitable for
everyone, since one of the most important factors to customers when
buying an air purifier is the price. An air purifier is also a part of the
furnishings in a home, which also makes the aesthetic design of the
air purifier important.
1.1 Background

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According to World Health Organization (WHO), 7 million deaths can
be blamed at air pollution during the year 2012. Most people have the
apprehension that air pollution, at a dangerous level, only occur in
parts of Asia and in the very largest cities. But now larger cities in
Europe are facing the same kind of problem. Drastic solutions are
done in Madrid and Paris where they occasionally have turned down
traffic to reduce air pollution. In China, it is very common to have an
air purifier at home to prevent living in polluted air. In Europe, this is
still not common but a growing awareness may lead to an increased
demand for air purifiers. Today most air purifiers are designed for the
Asian and US market but with a growing European market there
might be a change in design preferences.
The people who are going to use the air purifier is the main
stakeholder in this project. The users are the ones who are going to
buy and use the air purifier, and are therefore the ones who gets most
affected by the design choices we make in this project. The users are
people living in polluted areas worldwide where the air quality is low,
and people that suffer from allergies or asthma. A typical user is a
conscious person often with a child in the home.
1.2 Objective and aims
The objective for this project is to develop and design concepts for the
next generation of air purifiers based on a user-cantered approach.
The solution aims to meet the stakeholder demands, be socially,
economically, and environmentally sustainable. The aim is also to
design air purifiers that are attractive for users and that improve the
air quality and human health in polluted cities.

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MISSION STATEMENT:

” Design and develop a

conceptual air purifier for
people in areas with poor air
quality with focus on aspects
like functionality, user
experience, aesthetics, and
sustainability.”

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 CONTEXT

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Context
The context chapter explains the current situation on the air purifier
market in terms of the environment, design, functions, and design
challenges. A benchmarking exemplifies how current competitors
tackles typical design challenges in the development of air purifiers
and how they meet user needs.
2.1 Air Purifier
An air purifier is a device that absorbs and removes harmful particles
from its surrounding environment to prevent respiratory diseases on
humans. The most widespread use for an air purifier is to clean the air
from harmful airborne particles in homes, hospitals, and office
environments. Some of the airborne particles that an air purifier
removes includes air pollutants, allergens, cigarette smoke and dust.
Many are emitted by human activities where some of the common
sources is construction work, traffic, and industry. Basically, all
regions in the world are affected by air pollution but cities with a low-
income population is most impacted and many of its citizens cannot
afford an air purifier. The need for air purifiers today is greatest in
larger cities like Shijiazhuang, Nairobi, New Delhi, and Lagos. 98%
of low-income cities with a population more than 100 000 do not
meet World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for healthy air
quality, which is set to an annual maximum level of 10 µg/m3 of
PM2.5 (World Health Organization 2016). But the polluted air that are
generated by larger cities and its industries are also drifting to the
countryside and even more remote places (Law & Stohl 2007). In
China, it is primarily families with children and younger generations
who buy air purifiers while older people are said to deny that the air is
full of hazardous substances (Henry Fong, personal communication,
March 2017). But even among the younger in China, the
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apprehension is that air purifier is only needed in the larger industrial
cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. In the south of Guangzhou
province, where the project was carried out, residents said that the air
was good; but at the same time recommending that leisure activities
should be done on Sundays because then it is more likely to see the
sun and blue sky. The reason is that the air has been able to recover
during the weekend when factories are closed, which was observed to
be true.
When talking about air purifiers and when their performance is
measured and compared, the terms PM2.5 and PM10 are constantly
used. PM stands for particulate matter and is used for describing the
size in microns for small airborne particles. PM2.5 is the particle size
which is the most dangerous and is the particle size which bigger
cities, like Beijing, are mostly struggling with. Unfortunately, it is also
difficult to remove from the air. Different air purifiers are therefore
compared by how many percentages of PM2.5 they can remove. The
best models on the market today claims that they can remove up to
99.99% of airborne particles in the size of PM0.3 and bigger.
2.2 How it works
An air purifier is usually equipped with a fan that absorbs air and lets
the air pass through a filter media where particles get stuck. Usually
there is a pre-filter that captures larger particles. Behind the pre-filter,
some air cleaning technology, usually a finer filter, captures smaller
sized particles. The air that comes through is clean from harmful
particles. There is usually some type of front panel with possibilities
to control the air purifier. After some time of use, particles that are
captured makes the filter too dirty and depending on what type of
filter the air purifier use, the filter either needs to be cleaned or be
changed.
The most used fan in air purifiers is the centrifugal fan. It is easy to
manufacture energy efficient and generates a uniform airflow. Air
purifiers with centrifugal fan usually have the air inlet on the frontside
and the outlet facing upwards. This is because the centrifugal fan

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 changes the direction of airflow. It absorbs the air around its centre
axis and blows the air out from its sides. The outlet in an axial fan has
the same direction as the air coming in. It generates an airflow that is
not as uniform as a centrifugal fan and are therefore slightly less
energy efficient. Another fan type that does not change the direction
of airflow is the turbo fan. Its greatest disadvantage is the noise and
complex manufacturing process which results in high cost.

2.3 Using air purifier

To really be able to absorb all particulate matter in a room it is
important to set the air in motion. Particles with different density
creates segments where the heaviest particles fall and lighter particles
floats higher. To capture all particles, the most optimal is to have the
inlet at a bottom level and the outlet at the top with the airstream
Figure 1 . How an air purifier works. Illustration David Ardmar
facing upwards. This way the air purifier absorbs particles at floor
level and the outlet at top creates circulation in the room that pushes
the air down to floor level. An air purifier that are placed too high,
e.g. on a table will have trouble to absorbed the particles that have
dropped to a floor level. This area is especially a risk for children.

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The most optimal place to put an air purifier is in the middle of a
room without anything around it that may block the circulation of
airflow. The air purifier should also be used where the user is
spending his/her time the most.
According to them, the most important specifications for an air
purifier are: · how well it can remove PM2.5
· The range
· How fast it can change the air in a room
· Noise level
· Size and efficient use of space
· Design
· Price
The noise of an air purifier is usually created by vibrations caused
either by irregularities in the motion of the fan or, turbulence in the
airflow. The noise generated by the fan increases with the higher
speed. Turbulence is created when the airflow is blocked by
something. When a stream of air hits an object, the airstream is
pushed aside and creates swirls and voids of vacuum which in return
creates vibrations and noise. Turbulence is more likely created where
there are sharp edges. To avoid it, features where air paces should
therefore be designed with smooth curves and edges. In air purifiers,
turbulence is typically created by the grid and by the fan housing and
it is therefore critical to design those features with smooth curves to
avoid vibrations and noise.
2.4 Laws and regulations
The most important regulation is that no holes on the air purifier can
have a size so that a child can stick his/her fingers in it and touch
electronics or other parts inside the housing. An air purifier needs to
have holes both for the inlet and outlet of the airflow. This means that
the holes should be small or there should be enough space so that one
cannot reach to touch the inside. It also means that there must be a
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protection between the filter and the fan so a user cannot touch the fan
when cleaning or changing the filter.

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 IMPLEMENTATION

3.1 Design of air purifier

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3.2 Hardware requirement

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 CARDBOARD BOX
 CAR AIR FILTER (CYLINDRICAL/SQUARE MODEL)
 PLASTIC BOX AND CAP
 ON/OFF SWITCH
 USB CABLE
 PC FAN pc
 WIRE & BATTERY CLIP CONNECTOR
 SINK TUBE

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 DIAGRAM

4.1 Block Diagram

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The basic block diagram of air purifier is shown in above figure.
Mainly this block diagram consists of the following essential blocks.
1. Air filter
2. Fan
3. Battery
1- Air filter: Air filters are designed to trap contaminants like
airborne particles, dirt, dust, and even noxious fumes. These
inexpensive parts play a vital role in keeping the air going into
environment clean and free of the sort of junk
2-Fan: FILTER FANS CAN HELP KEEP THE AIR INSIDE YOUR
HOME CLEAN AND HEALTHY. One easy and affordable way to
make your own air cleaner at home is with a box fan and a furnace
filter.
3-Battery: Air Purifier Batteries are widely used in air purifiers due
to their high energy density, reliability, and rechargeable nature. Users
can easily recharge them without the need for frequent battery
replacements, ensuring continuous air purification.
4.2 3-D Diagram

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 WORKING

5.1 Working of air purifier

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Air purifier operating principle – is one. Air set in motion by the fan
passes through a system of filters and purified air is released to the
outside. In most air purifiers on the market, the polluted air is drawn
in at the side or rear of the air purifier, and the filtered air is released
at the top. This ensures good air circulation in the room, thus better
cleaning of the air.
Air purifier filtration stages
In an air purifier, the polluted air first passes through a pre-filter. It is
responsible for filtering out the biggest dirt clusters, dust and hair,
thus protecting the other filters from premature wear.
The next filter, through which the air passes is the carbon filter, which
absorbs Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and unpleasant Odors.
The last stage of filtration is the HEPA filter. It stops the smallest
contaminants at almost 100% efficiency.
Fan – a key component of the air purifier

An important element that affects the performance of an air purifier is

the fan. A modern one will guarantee quiet, efficient, and trouble-free
operation while consuming minimal energy. This will be appreciated

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by those who plan to use the air purifier in the children’s room or
bedroom. Even a slight humming sound can make it difficult to fall
asleep, so it is worth investing in air purifiers that generate what is
known as white noise. The steady sound produced by the air purifier
will not only not disturb, but may even make it easier to fall asleep.
Cleaning the purifier is also needed
The last but equally important element related to the performance of
our device is the cleaning method. The filters used in air purifiers
generally last very long – about 12 months. The air purifier will work
efficiently, but it is necessary to change them periodically, so you
should also check whether you can do it yourself and whether it is
intuitive. It is also worth checking if you can wash the pre-filter, or if
you can additionally remove the air inlet and outlet panels, which
become dirty over time and can be tricky to clean.

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 NEED OF AIR
PURIFIER

6.1 Particulate matter and health

6.2 Air cleaning

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Air purifiers filters can remove 99.7 percent of the airborne
particulate matter (PM) circulating in your home environment.
Removing these pollutants can lead to several immediate and long-
term health benefits such as better sleep quality and increased life
expectancy.
Relieves Symptoms of Asthma
1 in 12 people have asthma. People living with asthma have inflamed
bronchial tubes. Pollutants such as pet hair and dander, pollen, or dust
mites irritate their airways, causing difficulty breathing.
Eliminates Harmful Chemicals from Indoor
Environments
Closing the doors and windows of our house does not mean we can
shut off external pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon
monoxide. These gases are commonly found in areas of high motor
vehicle traffic and may get inside your homes. Research from the
national library of medicine shows exposure to carbon monoxide and
nitrogen dioxide PM increases the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s
disease.
Neutralizes Unpleasant Odors
Some chemicals such as gasoline, benzene, and formaldehyde break
down at room temperature causing an off-gassing Odor. These
chemicals, called Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are commonly
found in paints, aerosol sprays, upholstered furniture, or air
fresheners. The Odor from VOCs can cause nausea, breathlessness,
and even affect your cognitive functions.
Reduces the Chances of Airborne Diseases
Airborne diseases such as the common cold and flu are spread
through tiny pathogens floating around. When one family member
catches the flu, it is not uncommon for the rest of the family to get

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sick as well. This happens because everyone is breathing the same air
that is infected with bacteria and viruses.
Improves Sleep
Indoor allergens such as bacteria, fungi, and dust mites can trigger
allergies or hay fever. Hay fever causes a runny nose and can last up
to several weeks. Frequent sneezing, coughing, nose congestion,
watery eyes, or sore throat are some common allergic symptoms,
disrupting your sleep.

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 CONCLUSION

7.1 Conclusion of project

In conclusion, an air purifier is a device that helps to improve the
air quality in each space by removing pollutants and contaminants.
Maintaining a healthy and clean environment is essential,
especially in areas with poor air quality or where individuals may
suffer from allergies or respiratory conditions.

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The importance of an entire home air purifier cannot be overstated,
as it plays a crucial role in ensuring the well-being of individuals
by reducing the risk of exposure to harmful substances such as
dust, pet dander, pollen, mold spores, and volatile organic
compounds (VOCs). These pollutants can adversely affect our
health, leading to respiratory issues, allergies, and long-term health
problems.

Clean air purifiers utilize HEPA filters, activated carbon filters,

and UV light to capture and eliminate airborne particles and
pollutants. HEPA filters are highly effective in trapping
small particles such as dust and pollen, while activated carbon
filters adsorb odours and chemicals. UV light helps destroy
bacteria and viruses, improving indoor air quality.

There are numerous air purifier uses and benefits. Firstly, it helps
reduce allergens and asthma triggers, relieving individuals with
respiratory conditions. Secondly, it removes unpleasant odours and
chemicals from the air, creating a fresh and clean environment.
Additionally, air purifiers can help to minimize the spread of
airborne illnesses by capturing bacteria and viruses. Lastly, they
can improve sleep quality by reducing snoring and improving
overall air circulation in the bedroom.

Overall, investing in a bedroom air purifier is wise for improving

indoor air quality and maintaining a healthy living space. With its
ability to eliminate pollutants and provide numerous health
benefits, an air purifier is essential for everyone concerned about
air quality.

If you are considering buying an air purifier, you should first

understand the air purifier meaning and how to use it
properly. Different types of air purifiers have different features and
benefits, so you should choose one that suits your needs and
budget.

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You should also consider the air purifier's size, noise level,
maintenance, and energy efficiency. You should place the air
purifier in a room where you spend most of your time, such as
your bedroom or living room, and keep the windows and doors
closed to prevent outdoor pollutants from entering. To ensure
optimal performance, you should regularly change or clean the
filters according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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